[Renal dimensions in the Nephrology Department of Befelatanana Hospital, Antananarivo].

The knowledge of normale renal sizes specific for each individual and for any ethnicity, allows diagnostic and therapeutic medical decision. For a low-income country such as Madagascar, ultrasound is an ideal tool for this purpose. This study aims to collect data on renal dimensions and to seek the correlation between these data and the demographic and anthropometric parameters in Malagasies. This is a retrospective study of 200 non-diabetic patients without chronic kidney disease, spanning 3 years, conducted in the Nephrology Department of Befelatanana Hospital, Antananarivo. The average age of our patients was 45 ±16 years, with a sex-ratio of 0,9. On average, the dimensions (length x width x thickness) were 98 mm × 42 mm × 30 mm for right kidney, 99 mm × 45 mm × 31 mm for the left kidney. We found a significant difference between the right and left kidney in length (p<0.00001) and width (p = 0.03). A significant relationship was also found between renal length and age (p = 0.0016 and p = 0.04 respectively for the right kidney and the left kidney). No significant relationship was found between renal dimensions and size and patients weight. Despite its limitations, our study would provide important supports for clinical practice as well as for further studies.